


smile at me like you're a meteor in the atmosphere

by kontent



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Mutual Pining, POV Outsider, Rivals to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24457933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kontent/pseuds/kontent
Summary: Steve doesn’t know whether Clint is romantically or platonically interested in Natasha, who’s in his class on Politics 101 - Clint calls itHow Many Flaws Can We Find In The American Politics In One Semester-, but he knows that Clint is positively babbling about this woman. After the fifteen minutes of Clint ranting at Steve over lunch, he decides to ask: “Do you like her?”(alternatively titled: Natasha and Clint met in aPolitics 101class, and their roommates knew about their feelings before they did)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58
Collections: Get Well Soon Summer 2020





	1. strangers to rivals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coneybologna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coneybologna/gifts).



Steve, admittedly, does not have a very good radar when it comes to figuring out attraction. He doesn’t know how to see the difference between _I have a crush on this person_ and _I really badly want to be their friend_. It’s just… wobbly to him. It feels like the line is very unclear. So yeah, he doesn’t really know whether Clint is romantically or platonically interested in this Natasha, who’s in his class on Politics 101 - Clint calls it _How Many Flaws Can We Find In The American Politics In One Semester_ -, but he knows that Clint is positively _babbling_ about this woman. After the fifteen minutes of Clint ranting at Steve over lunch, with Steve only nodding or going ‘hm’ at the right times, he decides to break his silence: “Do you like her?”

Clint blinks at Steve, his brow furrowing. “Did you not listen to me? I just told you she was _infuriating_ , she says things with this _confidence_ , like she can just state them without the assholes disagreeing with her! And sometimes it even works!”

Steve rolls his eyes. “But does that actually bother you?”

“Yes!”

Clint munches down a few french fries - Steve’s french fries, technically - contemplating his answer. “Well, no. I agree with her, but I’m annoyed by how cool she is. It makes me feel like I have to prove myself. Not in a misogynistic way, like, that I’m better than her, more like - I want to prove that I can measure up?”

Steve thinks that, if this were a cartoon or comic, his eyebrows would be over his head now. But Clint doesn’t notice. He just keeps munching down french fries, casually dipping them in ketchup. At least he has the decency to not mix the ketchup with the mayonnaise. 

“Also, did I say she’s super pretty? Like, in this _I would stab you as a warning_ kind of pretty. She could walk all over me and I’d probably thank her.”

That makes Steve laugh. It’s very much like Clint to fall for the clever, dangerous woman in his politics class, he thinks. He doesn’t tell Clint about his suspicion. He just smiles to himself, and notes down that Clint might have a crush. 

Steve’s laughter makes Clint pull a fake-outraged expression. “Don’t laugh at me, Mr _I fell in love with the state champion of fencing_! You have no right to judge me!”

“Alright, alright.”

Steve doesn’t point out that Clint just compared his complaining to Steve ranting about his crush - but he doesn’t bother hiding his smirk either. 

x

Technically, Bruce isn’t quite sure how he got to be friends with Natasha. They met their first semester at college, and somehow they went from strangers to friends to roommates in 0.1 seconds. Living with Natasha is great, though. She’s a clean roommate, she tells him when she’ll be home and when she won’t, and she doesn’t throw any parties. Bruce is very grateful to her for that. 

Also, she accepts that his room is messy and that he will leave his notes all over the place. In exchange, he doesn’t complain when he falls over her ballet shoes for the seventh time that week on a Thursday, and he doesn’t say anything about the fact that their living room has a full wall decked out in mirrors. 

Between them, their flat is rather cluttered - they both have the tendency to put things where they might need them later, and then forgetting about that. Bruce gets a gentle reminder of that whenever he picks up a cup of tea he is confident he made just 10 minutes ago, only to take a sip and to realize that this particular cup has been cold for a while. 

Just like right now. The green-brown striped mug tasted vaguely like apple tea, but he can’t be entirely sure which one of the three they own at the moment. 

He considers heating it up again, but in the end, he doesn’t. He might as well make a new cup. While he’s waiting for the teapot, he hears the lock of their front door turn. 

There are the tell-tale sounds of a backpack being dropped, and rollerskates being taken off. The knee pads hit the floor way softer than the backpack did, and so does the coat. 

When Natasha comes into the kitchen, her socked feet softly padding on the group, there is a little frown on her face. 

Bruce smiles at her. “Hey.”

“Hey to you too.” She smiles at him, a little tiredly, and wanders off to probably change into something comfier. She didn’t say anything, but Bruce pulls out another mug for her. 

By the time she comes back, Bruce has placed the mugs on the couch table and wrapped himself up in a blanket burrito.

He knows Natasha well enough that it will take her a minute to be ready to talk about her days, so he just waits, comfortable with his spot on the couch. 

She spends a few minutes frantically putting mugs and plates away before she falls on the couch next to him. Bruce wriggles a little and lifts his blanket up to let her in. Natasha huffs, but curls under the blanket, letting him close the blanket burrito again. It takes another minute for her to start talking. 

“He’s so _annoying._ ”

“The guy in your Politics 101 class?”

Natasha nods against his shoulder, her soft curls brushing against his face. 

“He’s just so- the things he says are genuinely _smart_ , you know? It’s just so irritating to not have to fight with him, like with the rest of the white dudebros in my class. They will say some racist or misogynistic shit and before I can even call them out, this dude is just _down to fight_ .”  
Natasha sounds grumpy but appreciative, and Bruce finds himself smiling into her hair. 

“That sounds like he’s a good ally then.”

She sighs and sneaks her arms around his torso. She might have a cold aura occasionally, but Natasha is very cuddly - but also, maybe it’s _because_ she has a cold aura that makes her so cuddly. A form of touch starvation, maybe? Bruce decides this thought can wait. 

“He is.”

Natasha pauses, obviously chewing on her next words. Bruce notices once again how easy it is to talk to Natasha - he doesn’t like talking to many people, he’s not good at it, but Nat never makes him feel like that. 

“Is it weird that I almost don’t want him to be a good person? It’s just. I would rather have him be a dick than make me feel like I actually have someone back me up in class. Ugh, that sounds stupid.”  
Bruce chuckles, the soft sound lost next to Natasha’s groan as she, for lack of a better description, tries to disappear in the blankets. 

“No, it’s okay. Being in a class with a ton of white dudebros, as you called them, makes you distrust his intentions. I think that’s normal.”  
Natasha huffs. “But is it kind?”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Is it a defensive mechanism based off on experiences you made?”

Natasha turns her head to squint at him. Then she nods. “Touche.”

It’s hard to get physically comfort someone who’s currently stuck in a blanket burrito, but Bruce manages to get one hand out of the burrito and softly stroke Natasha’s curls.

 _You’re not a bad person for protecting your heart_ , he thinks. He doesn’t say it, though. Natasha already knows this. 

They stay there for a while, curled together like peas in a pod until Bruce speaks up again. “Do you think he has some unknown intention? Like, does he gain anything from backing you up in class?”

Natasha sighs. “No, not really. The assholes don’t like him now, because he’s so open about his opinions, but he doesn’t seem to care that. Which makes him all the more attractive”, she grumbles into Bruce’s shoulder. 

Bruce’s brain goes ‘oh’ at that. He doesn’t say it though. In all the time he’s known Natasha, she’s never shown any interest in anyone. She’s never dated, she’s never been in love.

But maybe she is now. And Bruce finds that he feels joy at the idea that his best friend found someone who can keep up her. Someone who will back her up, who will defend her when people are being assholes. He knows that Natasha doesn’t _need_ to be defended, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about having someone who _would_ defend you, who would fight an asshole for you because they have your back. 

“I think you should give him a chance. I mean, he might be genuinely nice.”

He’s silent for a minute, trying to figure out how to make sense of his thoughts. “And I mean… it would be nice to talk to someone who backs you up like that in class, wouldn’t it?”

There’s a moment of silence before Natasha slowly speaks up again. “I guess it would be nice.”

They stay in silence for a while, curled up in their blanket burrito. Then Natasha adds: “I think I might talk to him after class next time.”


	2. rivals to friends

To be quite honest, Steve hadn’t been sure if the situation with the woman from Politics 101 would ever change. But apparently, she had come up to Clint and asked him for coffee to discuss the American _injustice_ system.

“Steve, I swear she said it without any change in facial expression, so I wasn’t sure if she was making a joke, or if she would be offended if I laughed, so I just made this weird facial expression, and god, she must think I’m an idiot.” 

Clint has his head buried in his arms, and everything he says is slightly muffled, but Steve can still understand him pretty well. 

“To be fair, you are an idiot.” Steve grins, ducking the slap Clint is aiming at his shoulder. 

“You’re supposed to be on my side”, whins Clint, giving his best impression of a kicked puppy. 

Steve shrugs. “I can be on your side and still call you an idiot.”

Clint rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

Steve is about to ask how the coffee date went, when the door to their flat opens, swinging dramatically open to hit the wall. 

Earlier this semester, Steve would have been worried about the wall, but when it became increasingly clear that their roommate wouldn’t stop banging the door against the wall he had gone out and bought one of those door stoppers that prevented the destruction of the wall.

Tony grins at them, his smile wide and amused. “How are my favourite roommates doing?”

Clint snorts, but it’s good-naturedly. “We’re your only roommates.” 

Tony dismissively waves a hand, while he kicks the door closed. “Whatever, pumpkin. Pepper told me that Rhodey saw you meeting a _very_ cute redhead for coffee today, but she said he said that you seemed to be fighting. And gosh, I am _so_ interested in this story.”

Tony drops on his bed, stretching out his legs. Steve can’t help but appreciate the aesthetic of the red pants with the black stilettos, the flawless grace Tony exudes in outfits like this one.

Clint rolls his eyes with fake exasperation at Tony. “First of all, we weren’t fighting, and second of all, even if we would have been, it’s none of your business.”

Steve suppresses a grin and goes back to the sketch he had to abandon once Clint showed up from his coffee date. The comic on his lap is just for fun, not for his classes, but he still wants to get it right, so he had paused for Clint. But now he can continue - he’s familiar with this game - Clint and Tony will play-fight about things as if they aren’t friends and really value each other’s input, and then they will share whatever they have on their mind. 

Steve has witnessed it many times, and it has yet to stop being amusing. 

Tony’s fake offended gasp is very audible. “Pumpkin! What’s gotten into you? Has the woman bewitched you?”

Even though he doesn’t want to get too involved, the word choice makes Steve grin, he throws in: “If you can bewitch someone by having a good understanding of politics and the intersectionality of oppression, then yes, he has been bewitched.”

Clint throws himself dramatically over Steve’s bed, clutching at his chest. “The betrayal! I trusted you, Steve!”

“No, you rambled at me, knowing full well I would tell Tony.” Tony’s laugh was drowned out by Clint’s offended huff.

“Et tu, Steve?” 

Admittedly, Steve doesn’t have a fitting Shakespeare quote at hand to respond to that, so he just sticks his tongue out at Clint. Because he’s a mature adult, and because he can.

Clint just imitates him by sticking his tongue out, too. 

The click-clack of heels being kicked off reach both their ears and Tony’s sigh. “Oh gosh, these heels were killing me.”

He rolls his ankles, and the bones crack, making Steve cringe a little. He hates when Tony does that - it just sounds so unhealthy, and it reminds Steve of the countless visits to the doctor where they told him his bones were weak, that they were more likely to break if he wasn’t being careful. Tony shoots him an apologetic smile, and Steve just waves a hand. It’s fine. He gets that it’s a habit Tony can’t really control, but it still makes Steve’s skin crawl. 

Clint doesn’t enjoy it either. “No cracking!”

Tony raises his hands in an apologetic gesture. “Yes, yes. But back on topic! Tell me all about this coffee date, and I’m going to tell you all about Melinda and Phil.” 

His smile is turning into the _listen I have the best news_ version and Steve already fears whatever they’re going to be told. “Not all of us want to know about _everyone’s_ drama, Tony.”

Clint waves Steve off, shushing him. “ _I_ wanna know.”

x

Bruce isn’t surprised that Natasha actually asked the man - Clint, as it turned out - to get coffee after the next class they had together. When Natasha said she wanted to do something, she really was going to do it. Bruce knows she doesn’t do empty promises. 

Apparently, the coffee date was fun. They screamed - discussed very emphatically, according to Natasha - in the coffee shop, until they were asked to leave by the barista. Then they discussed some more, and in the end, Natasha walked Clint back to his flat, and he didn’t even try to fight her on it. 

That had been almost four weeks ago now - and since then, they had met up again. And again. At this point, Bruce has counted at least five occasions where they had met up simply to talk to each other – to  _ discuss _ , as Natasha insists.

Natasha calls it  _ acquaintances who meet over coffee regularly.  _ Bruce simply calls that friendship, which makes Natasha huff, but she doesn’t disagree.

Bruce has yet to meet Clint, but with everything Natasha told him, he appears to be a good guy. Maybe a little too ready to fight everyone, but Clint seems to be very caring and positive, and Bruce can see how well that balances with Natasha. 

Sometimes Natasha needs someone to pull her out of her head, out of that shell she has created out of necessity. Bruce sometimes forgets that other people, most people don’t get to see Natasha roll out of bed in the morning. They don’t see her do her daily ballet stretches, how all the tension ebbs away from her. 

When she dances, Natasha doesn’t look cold. She looks so carefree when she dances in the living room that Bruce’s heart breaks for her a little. He wishes she’d feel like that more often - and it seems like she does, when she’s with Clint. So, as far as he’s concerned, he’s good with Clint being around. 

Be that as a friend like now, or as something else later on. Natasha hasn’t said anything explicitly, but there is something soft in her voice, something almost longing. Bruce knows that she will talk to him if she wants to, so he doesn’t ask her about whether or not she might be in love with Clint. He can draw his own conclusions - he is a scientist after all. 


	3. friends to lovers

When Thor tells Clint that there is supposed to be a meteor shower soon, he sees an opportunity he can’t let pass. (Also, he still wonders how he got to be friends with Thor, who is studying astrophysics, but he’s definitely not complaining knowing whenever something cool happens in space.)

Maybe it’s too romantic. Maybe it’s too cliche. But Clint _really_ wants to show Natasha the meteors. When he looks at the stars, he sees millions of possibilities. There are so many stars out there, so many more planets spinning around them. He doesn’t know how to look at the stars and not feel like he can be anything. 

But he knows that Natasha sees something else. She looks at the stars and thinks of the fact that the light reaching the earth that day comes from a sun that might already be dead, that might already have exploded and destroyed everything around it. Or it might have collapsed in on itself, becoming a black hole, forever consuming the light of the universe. 

He understands why she looks at the night sky like that, but… he wishes he could show her more than “the endless abyss of all the things we don’t know yet”. Clint doesn’t… want Natasha to change her opinion, not really. He just wants to give her something positive, a memory to balance the sadness she feels when she looks at the night sky. 

So he asks her if she wants to go watch the meteors together. “Please? It will be fun!”

Natasha doesn’t look convinced about the fun, but she nods anyway. “Sure. Will you pick me up?

“Yeah!” 

He doesn’t realize until an hour later that he hasn’t been at her place before, so he doesn’t have her address. When he texts her, she tells him the address, and to ring the bell for Banner and Romanova.

Clint already knew that Natasha has a roommate, but now he realizes he’s going to meet him. Natasha didn’t tell him much about the man, Bruce, but the way she talked about him, they seem more like siblings than just friends. So he feels like it’s justified that he feels a little nervous to meet him. 

Especially because he knows from both living first with the circus and now with Steve and Tony, he knows that you can’t hide things from your roommate. They _know_ everything. 

Clint doesn’t mind having roommates. He enjoys it, to be honest - he’s grown up surrounded by people, so he’s never lived alone. Even though living with Steve and Tony isn’t exactly the same as living with the whole circus, it’s nice. 

He’s just a little nervous about meeting new people, but now it’s too late to turn around. He’s already in front of the flat. Clint carefully pushes the doorbell, and inside a shrill sound goes off. He doesn’t flinch, but the sound rings in his ears. He would hate having that bell in their flat. 

The door opens, and Clint finds himself face to face with a man who looks like he just fell out of bed. His brown curls are messed up, and his glasses are kind of lopsided. But he smiles softly, shy in a way that Clint doesn’t expect but that somehow fits very well, and gives a small wave. “Hi, I’m Bruce.”

Clint gives a small wave back on instinct. “I’m Clint.” 

Bruce’s eyes gleam a little, a hint of mischief shining through. “I know.”

He opens the door wider, letting Clint in. “Natasha is still getting dressed, I think. You can come in - do you want tea?”

Clint actually prefers coffee, but he doesn’t dislike tea, so he nods. “Yeah, sure.”

Bruce leads him into the kitchen, and it’s cluttered with what Clint suspects are either notes on organic chemistry, but they could also be notes on different atoms. Or both. He’s not sure.

Bruce hands him a mug, and the smell of fruity tea drifts into Clint’s nose. That actually smells very lovely. 

Bruce wraps his hands around his own mug, covering his hands with his sweater. The gesture reminds Clint of Steve, of the way he sometimes curls in on himself as if he wants to disappear into himself. 

“So… what do you study? Biology, chemistry?”

Bruce blinks as if he hadn’t expected Clint to make small talk. “Huh?”

Clint smiles and points at the notes on the table. “It looks like you were studying just now.”

“Oh! Yeah, uh… I study biology _and_ chemistry, actually.”  
Bruce looks sheepish as if he’s used to people being irritated by that. Clint wants to tell him that, no, it’s super cool, but he doesn’t think he can do that without overstepping. 

Bruce glances at the papers in front of him. “Do you… want to know what I’m working on right now?” 

He sounds so hopeful, and Clint doesn’t understand biology or chemistry, but it’s not like that matter. He really just thinks that Bruce looks so happy to talk about biochemical processes, that he doesn’t mind listening to him while they wait for Natasha. 

x

It’s a warm summer night, the stars are bright, and Natasha wonders if this is what love feels like. Clint’s lying next to her in the grass, watching the meteors raining down. She actually enjoys this, she finds. The meteors glow and burn out, and she doesn’t feel the overpowering sadness she used to feel at watching the endless, unknown space. She wonders if she feels like this because Clint is here with her.

“Natasha?”

She hums, both an answer and a question. She wonders what he going to say. 

“I’m really glad you came here with me.”

He sounds so honest - so gentle. Like he really just wants her to know that, like he doesn’t expect anything from her. It is very much like Clint to say something like this. 

She doesn’t know what to answer. She doesn’t know how to respond to this genuine emotion, to these soft, precious words. 

So she doesn’t answer. She looks at him, sees him watching the stars. She turns back to the sky just in time to see a meteor shoot through the atmosphere, bright and lovely before being consumed by the flames.

Natasha doesn’t know how to tell Clint that she’s in love with him. She doesn’t know how to speak the words, how to make him _see_. She doesn’t know how to tell him that she wants to crawl under his skin, that she wants to carve out a spot in his chest and fit herself into it. She doesn’t know how to tell him that she feels without using a weird at best or morbid at worst metaphor. 

Sometimes, she thinks Clint feels the same. When she wakes up wrapped around him like a small octopus, her hand is in her hair, carding through the curls. He holds her like she’s precious, like she’s someone special. Something about the way he treats her just makes her hope; hope that there might be a spark of romantic love on his side, too. When she was writing papers last week and getting frustrated, he brought her a cup of her favourite tea to the library, and she found it in herself to smile at him, bright and genuine, even through the stress. He smiled back, like the sun coming out on a cloudy day, his smile as bright as a sun before vanishing again. 

The only thing Natasha knows for sure is that she’s never felt like this. She’s never felt so strongly for anyone, and she wonders if this is a moment she’ll look back on one day, regretting that she didn’t do things differently. 

So she decides to be brave. She slips her fingers between his, connecting them. She squeezes his hand, and even without her saying anything, she tries to tell him. _I’m glad I came here, too_. 

Clint squeezes back, a soft reassuring weight. This time, when she looks at him, Clint is looking right back at her. It‘s too dark to see him clearly, but Natasha doesn‘t mind. His smile is burned into her mind, like she had looked at the sun for too long and the image had burned itself into her eyelids.

She feels like she’s Icarus, flying too close to the sun, risking to be burned - but she really likes Clint, and she wants him to _know_. 

“Clint“, she says, and before she can change her mind, she rolls over on her side, facing Clint full on. “I’m in love with you.”

Her heart isn’t thundering in her chest. She isn’t feeling like she’s about to run away - and, she realizes, it’s because it’s just so _true._ Clint might not feel the same way, but the relief she feels at _acknowledging_ that she’s fallen for him overpowers the fear of rejection by far. 

She’s still looking at Clint, at his dumbfounded expression, and while he reminds her a little of a goldfish, she allows herself to be silly and think that he’s a pretty goldfish. 

“I’m- I think I‘ve been a little in love with you since the day we met“, Clint rushes out, the words tumbling out of his mouth like they’ve been waiting there for a while. 

Natasha can‘t stop herself from laughing, the relief and joy she feels pouring out like a summer storm. She watches as Clint’s face changes from surprised to delighted, his smile bright and lopsided. 

“Can I kiss you?” Clint’s words make her heart whoop in her chest, and she can’t help but chuckle. “What if I kiss you first?”

His face lights up like a meteor entering the atmosphere. „Yes, please“, he says, and his voice sound so _reverent_ , even if she hadn’t wanted to kiss him before, she would have wanted to now. So she takes the invitation, and leans forward, pressing their lips together gently. Clint kisses her back, and she doesn’t know why, but the kiss feels like pure joy. Maybe she’s being silly, maybe she’s being cliche, but her chest feels like fireworks. She finds herself curling her hands into Clint’s hair, avoiding the hearing aids, kissing him back just as intensely. 

Clint’s hands are pulling her closer, until they’re pressed together, meteors forgotten.


End file.
